October 9, 2011

I counted 56 or 57 participants — including children — arriving on the Capitol Square at noon. They marched half a block to the law enforcement monument, where they ambled around chanting "We are the 99%." Then a man started a chant that's very familiar from last winter's protests: "Whose house?"/"Our house!" And the group filed up to the Capitol and reassembled in the rotunda for some more chanting and speechmaking.

One of the chants in the rotunda was "How do we fix the deficit?"/"Tax! Tax! Tax the rich!" And I love the hanging banner: "All shared sacrifice is equal, but some must share the sacrifice more than others." It's an allusion to George Orwell's "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others." You're not really supposed to be proud of sounding Orwellian... but there you have it.

I have video, which I'll put up soon, as well as more photographs. Generally, I'd say that Occupy Madison was a small affair. And yet they're claiming to represent 99% of Americans.

It reminded me a bit of the Silent Majority Walk last June. Those folks got quite a few catcalls about the disparity between their name and their number. Of course, the Silent Majority Walk consisted of conservatives, and the Occupy Madison people give off a strongly left-wing vibe. But I keep thinking there's a bridge between these groups. The main point is that they are upset about economic problems. Whether any of them are right about how to solve these problems... who knows?

Prof. A wrote, "The main point is that they are upset about economic problems. Whether any of them are right about how to solve these problems... who knows?" With due and genuine respect to our hostess:

I categorically reject that.

Anyone who can balance a checkbook knows. They may pretend otherwise, but if you understand even pre-algebra math, you can't pretend that both sides' views are equally legitimate or that this is some great mystery.

As long as someone else is sharing the sacrifice and they're getting (or think they're getting) something for nothing they love Orwell as much as Lenin and Marx. Or, maybe, they thought "Animal Farm" was a utopic novel and not distopic.

I just hope they weren't all chanting together like THIS mindless, lobotomized group in Atlanta.

Amazing, just amazing. I guess none of these people have ever seen Monty Python's "Life of Brian".

Brian: No, no. Please, please please listen. I've got one or two things to say. The Crowd: Tell us! Tell us both of them! Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong. You don't need to follow me. You don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for yourselves! You're all individuals! The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals! Brian: You're all different! The Crowd: Yes! We're all different! Man in crowd: I'm not... Man in crowd: Shhh! Brian: You've all got to work it out for yourselves. The Crowd: Yes! We've got to work it out for ourselves! Brian: Exactly! The Crowd: Tell us more! Brian: No! That's the point! Don't let anyone tell you what to do! Otherwise - Ow! Ow!

Beldar: you can't pretend that both sides' views are equally legitimate or that this is some great mystery.

Exactly. Via Insty, Ed Driscoll sums it up nicelyL

"It’s really intriguing how the policy differences are informed by cultural differences. The twentysomethings haven’t paid much, if anything, in taxes and have received more than they’ve given. The Tea Partiers tend to be older and have spent a lot of time paying into the system. They resent paying for handouts. The Occupy Wall Streeters resent not getting them. And their definition of greed is not merely wanting to keep your own money, but resisting when others try to take it from you.

We've a cottage industry, perhaps an industrial complex talking past each other. I was raised in an aspirational blue-collar household, and we still got slaughtered by the smartest guys in the room.

I'm not sure any of these folk, left or right, have an inkling of what to do for the millions of folk that have been decimated by the economic transformations, but it sure as he'll isn't green jobs or pursuing creative class economic development...neither of which will lead us anywhere.

They just won't go away. There is too much at stake, even if some of you are too blind to see it.

I'm with Steyn:

"If the specifics of their "program" are somewhat contradictory, the general vibe is consistent: They wish to enjoy an advanced Western lifestyle without earning an advanced Western living. The pampered, elderly children of a fin de civilisation overdeveloped world, they appear to regard life as an unending vacation whose bill never comes due."

Yeah, but what a moment it was. That last helicopter on the roof of the embassy, American diplomats and soldiers punching and kicking the Vietnamese who had worked for us for decades, the women and children crying and then the lift off to the waiting carrier out in the ocean.

Taxes should be raised on the wealthy, across the board. They can afford it (and most don't deserve millions, regardless of what the trailer-park Ayn Rands of AA.com insist..). And that would fix the deficit. 50%..as per Reagan's first term

A word to Mitochondri-Alli and J-- you don't think the rich pay their fair share? I don't either. They pay far too much. The top 1% of earners pay 38.02% of federal income taxes. The top 5% pay 58.72%. The top 10% pay 69.94%. The top 25% pay 86.34%. The top 50% pay 97.3% The bottom 50% pay 2.7%. It's all here Can you possibly believe that the rich are not sufficiently taxed? Do you really believe the poor should be paid by the rich for being poor? What kind of twisted logic is that, if it is logic at all?

I apologize to the good commenters who got deleted in the vast culling I just performed. But let this be a lesson to everyone.

You need to be interesting. Insults can be interesting, but a long string of insults just drives away most readers. When an obvious troll shows up, don't fill up the thread with interaction with this person. That is just stupid and makes the thread worthless.

No, there's a difference between allowing free speech and discussion (rowdy to a point) and "Althouse's explicit approval to pollute threads with their insults, racism, and anti-semitism". I never saw the latter.

I just think the drivel was stopped. If she puts the hammer down in future, a lot of people here won't like it because she gives them a lot of latitude.

I don't mind rules if it keeps the discussion going in a cogent direction. Ann's tried to go without rules. Maybe, like some appellate court decisions, we're seeing the theoretical can't live with the practical.

"How about talking about substance instead of bullshitting about each other?"

How's this: the individuals claiming to be the 99% and those who are sympathetic to them are apparently poor at math. It's okay as long as they aren't in a position to wield any power and they shouldn't be ashamed; math is hard.

They are not the 99%, and taxing the "rich" (>250k) at 100% won't come close to balancing the budget. You'll have to seize all of their assets as well (and that will happen but once; what about next year?). For that matter, simly taxing them at 100% will happen but once. After that they will get a clue and quit working (hell, they'll quit before the first witholding occurs).

I just think it didn't make this place look very esteemed to focus on an unfortunate, and yes, maybe even stupid phrasing of an idea, when the man taking issue with other things using such language, would have wholeheartedly endorsed that idea.

The post uses the authority of Orwell, the writer and man, to force a wedge against an idea that he supported, according to all the evidence.

Communism was not the same thing as socialism. If you are attempting to conflate the two, that doesn't allow for a productive criticism of what Orwell stood for or what he opposed.

The funny thing is that these people are so unhappy about the unjust way they feel they have been treated, and yet these very same people almost certainly voted for Barack Obama. They blame "the rich" for their ills because they cannot bring themselves to admit that Obama's policies are the reasons they can't get a job, that bank fees went up because of laws passed by Dodd, Frank and Schumer (known for their hit "Don't Pull Your Money Out On Me, Baby"). It's your own damn fault, you losers! You put them into power and now you're crying because President Goldman Sachs didn't give you a cut in the bribes and payoffs. Idiots!

ADDED:They are trying to argue that all those comments were spam that needed to be removed. But the bloggers and commenters over there had interacted with [the commenter]. You don't interact with spam. A step up from spam is "troll." But everyone knows not to feed the troll. Why did they go back and forth with [the commenter] if he was a troll? Their interaction is the evidence that he was not a troll. [The blog owner] simply became exasperated and embarrassed when [the commenter] outwrote him, and he destroyed the material that made him look bad. He's like a scientist who destroys his data after his conclusions are questioned. The obvious presumption in the case of destruction of evidence is that it hurt your case. Of course, the evidence of their interaction with [the commenter] is still there, and that evidence also, as I've just explained, is evidence against them. What colossal losers!